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The awful truth that lies behind the bronze

The monument to the Soviet ‘liberation’ in September 1944, the bronze soldier standing in one of Tallinn’s central squares, was one of the most hated monuments in Estonia until the Soviet occupation ended 50 years later.

It is curious to discover that there are leading Western politicians and commentators who do not know this, and even believe, or claim to believe, the Russian fairy-story that the Red Army freed my country from the Nazis.

In some cases they have been shrill in their condemnation of the Estonian government’s decision to move the Bronze Solider off to a war cemetery, where he surely belongs, and if anything sympathetic to the rioting and vandalism by Estonian’s Russian-speaking minority.

Perhaps it is necessary to explain once again what happened on 22 September 1944. There was no fighting in Tallinn between Russian and German troops, ejected without help by Estonian soldiers who also restored their national government.

The Red Army returned as the Nazis retreated, and the flag which was ripped down from the tower of Toompea Castle was not the swastika but the blue-black-white Estonian tricolor.

The Russians had been here before, thanks to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, marching into Tallinn in October 1939 and promising not to compromise Estonian independence; similar pacts were signed with Lithuania and Latvia. All three countries were subjected to mass terror, Estonia losing nearly 20% of its pre-war population.

For them, as for the other Central and Eastern European nations, the end of Nazi occupation connected seamlessly with the (re)start of Soviet occupation commemorated by the now-famous Bronze Soldier. The memory of the real heroes was suppressed. Like the leaders of the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, those who led Estonia’s national resistance and had survived the struggle against the Nazis were annihilated by the NKVD.

This incidentally helps to explain why Estonians find it hard to tell the difference between Nazis and Communists.

The violent demonstrations of recent days have nothing to do with democracy in Estonia, where the glorification, let alone rebirth, of fascism is unthinkable. Rather, they are symptomatic of the Russian refusal to deal with their history by declaring the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact null and void, and apologising – as Germany did many years ago – for the death and misery which flowed from it.

Instead Russian politicians and officials are de facto encouraging the protests, with Russian diplomats in Estonia developing contacts with the extremists arrested for rioting and mass-vandalism over the last few days.

Historical truth is elusive and it is rarely easy to agree on a common view. A joint commission of historians should be given access to the archives in both Russia and in the Baltic states, and present its findings to the public and to the various parliaments.

Such a ‘truth commission’ may be the best way out of the current war of accusations and recriminations, and establish the basis for a better understanding between the nations.

Mart Laar is a professional historian who was prime minister of Estonia in 1992-94 and 1999-2002.